Category Archives: Quit

I got an awesome email from a reader of the blog, who found the courage to quit a well-paying job and move on to something else. Here’s his story:

I was very unhappy in my last job, and though I knew your work, I still quit too late. I feel like I should have quit half a year ago.

So, why did I stay too long in the old job?

There were two reasons: One was money. Not the amount they pay, but rather the security that it gave me. I had no savings but was in debt. Which scared me about changing my job. If the new job wouldn’t have been good, I would have had a problem. This is now different, when I finally applied I had enough savings to live for some months without a job.

The second reason was the memory of the good times in this company. It really started out nice. Most people there are really likeable. The problems started when a coworker quit and I got his position. This position is really shitty, because of bad management and a lot of organizational problems. Of course, I knew part of this beforehand and I made it a condition that these things change. My boss agreed to this, because otherwise I would have refused to take the position. But in nearly a year, next to nothing changed. Of course, a lot of things changed. But not the really important stuff. For a long time I thought they will change, I worked for them to change. I just wished to be as happy as in the beginning.

Over time, I developed most of your warning signs. (Physical symptoms, procrastination, I stopped to care, …) The unhappiness made me even more unhappy.

When I’m happy, I’m motivated and do my work well. When I started to grow unhappy, I saw that my work isn’t as half as good as it could be. And I even need more time to do it, because I didn’t want to do it in the first place. Knowing I do not nearly as good as I could increased the unhappiness and decreased motivation further. So it grew worse over time, with no way out. I even tried to get rid of this work, to get new assignments. But nobody else at the company had the necessary knowledge, so my boss wouldn’t let me change it, despite knowing that I am not happy with it.

At my new workplace, the manager talks about motivation and job satisfaction/happiness. (The German word used is Zufriedenheit, which can be translated both ways).

There is also a culture of respect. The managemant demands that people work together for a common goal, which is also very nice. All the people I know so far are nice and welcoming. I only work for two days at my new job, but I’m already confident that this will be a nice place to work.

I wrote this down, in case you want to use it for any future article. If you use it, please substitute my name with a pseudonym.

Kudos on finding the courage to quit an unhappy job and move on to something better!

Have you ever quit a job without having a new one lined up? Why did you quit? Then what happened?

I’ve done it myself once. I was working really hard as a developer, when one seriously under-qualified manager called me unprofessional in a meeting. I stood up, left the meeting and resigned the next day.

Everything worked out fine for me – I went out on my own and became an independent consultant and went on from there to co-found an IT consulting company where we treated people right – and now I make people happy at work :o)

What about you?

I have a suspicion that if you’re reading this, you’re thinking of quitting.